


How the West Was Won (the Going to California Remix)

by EllieMurasaki



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Community: spn_bitesized, M/M, Remix
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-12
Updated: 2012-02-12
Packaged: 2017-10-31 00:47:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 936
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/338060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EllieMurasaki/pseuds/EllieMurasaki
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sequel to <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/146967">How the West Was Won</a> and the <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/177348">Since I've Been Loving You Remix</a>; read them first.</p>
            </blockquote>





	How the West Was Won (the Going to California Remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [How the West Was Won (Since I've Been Loving You Remix)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/177348) by [EllieMurasaki](https://archiveofourown.org/users/EllieMurasaki/pseuds/EllieMurasaki). 
  * Inspired by [How the West Was Won](https://archiveofourown.org/works/146967) by [keerawa](https://archiveofourown.org/users/keerawa/pseuds/keerawa). 



Joe flails himself awake, mumbling; tomorrow there'll be marks on Dean's chest from those big hands. Dean thinks he catches the word 'Joe', which is a whole new level of talking to oneself. "Hey, hey, easy," Dean says, trying to be soothing.

"Dean?" Joe asks.

"I'm here, I'm right here, you had a nightmare," Dean says, stroking Joe's arm. "Clowns or midgets?" he jokes. (Sammy used to have a thing about clowns—okay, yes, leaving him at the-kid-arcade-with-all-the-clowns so often to go hook up with some chick was a dick move, and Dean would never have done it if he'd known how little time with his brother he'd have. And Sammy was always short.)

Joe gives him a flat look, sitting up. "Midget, singular," he says, swinging his legs off the side of the bed. "My sister. She was—God—pinned to the ceiling, sliced open—then fire—"

"I never told you how my mother died," Dean says.

Joe glances back.

"That's how," Dean says. "That's exactly how Dad described it."

Joe blanches. In a burst of motion, he's across the room, grabbing up his phone and dialing. "Beth, it's me," he says a minute later. "I had a dream—you died the same way Dean's mom did. Keep safe, okay? And call me back. Even if it's just to say I'm a wimp afraid of his own shadow, call me. And don't get pinned to any ceilings, and be careful around fire." Joe hangs up and comes back to sit next to Dean.

"It was just a dream," Dean says.

"You don't believe that," says Joe.

This is true. Dean has, however, better sense than to say anything of the sort.

"Tell me about your mother," Joe says.

Dean shrugs, lying back. "I don't remember much. I wasn't even five. She made me tomato-rice soup when I was sick, she made me pie and cut the crusts off my sandwiches, she sang me 'Hey Jude' when I wouldn't sleep. Better than any lullaby. I remember the fire," he adds, as Joe lies down half on top of him. "Dad woke me up, yelling for Mom, and when I came out in the hall he told me to run." _Take your brother_ —no. Joe doesn't need to know about the biggest fuckup of Dean's life.

"And your dad came out, and your mom didn't," Joe predicts. Postdicts, whatever.

"Yeah."

"I'm sorry," Joe says. "For everything."

"None of this was your fault," Dean says, suddenly tired. "Unless you're the evil fucker who killed her, in which case, carry on not telling me, I'd hate to have to kill you."

Joe laughs.

 

The next morning, Dean and Joe both have voicemails waiting. Joe's is from Beth—she's _fine_ , really, she doesn't need one overprotective big brother, let alone two. Dean's—

"Be very careful, Dean. Find your brother. We're all in danger."

Dean's second listen is on speakerphone so Joe can hear it too.

"You've never mentioned a brother," Joe says.

Dean shrugs. "He died."

Joe almost goes apoplectic. When he can speak again, he says, "How sure are you? Because if your father's telling you to find your brother because you're all in danger, it sounds to me like he might be alive."

Dean thinks. One day he'd been at Sammy's bedside, the next two hundred miles away, and Dad... "I never saw the body," Dean says. "And Dad never said in so many words that—" Dean stops. His vision's blurring. "Gonna kill 'im," he decides.

"Let me slug him one first," Joe says. "I—" He stops, then tries again. "Your brother's name is Sam," he says. "You used to feed him Lucky Charms and Spaghetti-Os when Dad wasn't around, and you left him at Plucky Pennywhistle's sometimes when you were supposed to be watching him, and the Christmas he found out about hunting, he gave you that amulet."

Dean clutches the amulet with one hand and grabs his knife with the other. "You can't—you can't possibly— _who are you_?"

Joe holds up his hands in surrender. "When you came to the Roadhouse looking for Joe Harvelle, you wanted my sister. Joanna Beth. I'm sorry I lied," he adds. "I didn't want you to leave without me. I thought you didn't care any more than Dad does—I didn't know you thought I was _dead_."

"You can't be my brother," Dean says, shaking his head. "You can't be—I _fucked_ you! You knew, the whole time, and you still fucked me!"

"I thought, if I didn't, you might leave me," Joe says, his voice very small.

Dean puts down the knife, and Joe—Sam—relaxes.

Dean decks him.

"Ow," Sam says, rubbing his face where Dean's fist made contact. "Guess I deserved that."

"Yeah, you did," Dean says roughly. "Why didn't you tell me at the start?"

Joe's eyes cut away.

"I really missed you," Sam says.

Dean yanks Sam into a crushing hug. "Don't you ever," he murmurs into Sammy's ear, " _ever_ , scare me like that. Ever again."

"Not planning to," Sammy says.

 

They go to Jericho to check out the hunt Dad was on when he called Dean. It's just a ghost hunt, no big deal except that the body count is accelerating, one every year instead of every few. Sam gets busted by the cops and busts out with John's journal in hand, which has coordinates addressed to Dean in the last page before the blank ones.

Forewarned is forearmed. Jo survives.

In Chicago, when Sam and Dean find John in their motel room, Sam slugs John. "Ellen Harvelle sends her regards," Sam says.


End file.
